


Haven in a Heartless World

by dashery



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Homestuck Shipping Olympics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-24
Updated: 2012-06-24
Packaged: 2017-11-08 10:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/442441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dashery/pseuds/dashery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SM: Come on, admit it. Weren’t you and Ms. Lalonde a thing?<br/>DS: If we were a thing it sure wasn’t a thing anything like the thing that you’re thinking was a thing that could actually happen.<br/>SM: So, yes or no?<br/>DS: Have you seen her? I could get the same effect by grinding a mirror, but with less freezerburn.</p><p>(Written for HSO 2012 Bonus Round 1; the prompt was "Popular History + Proverbs - Alpha!DaveAlpha!Rose".)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haven in a Heartless World

**Author's Note:**

> I really liked this prompt, so I'm glad that, if I only got one BR1 fill done, it was this one. Even if it had already been filled, whoops.
> 
> Sorry about the kind-of-difficult formatting; I tried to make it like a real book.

From _Haven in a Heartless World: Unraveling a Revolution, Revealing a Relationship_

pp.133 Chapter Four: He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune

[...] unclear when they met. Hypotheses abound: perhaps in Hollywood during early discussions of the film adaptations of her novels, at a party on a mutual acquaintance’s yacht, at a private high school known only to the gifted elite, during a sudden rainstorm in upstate New York. One popular pet theory--first put forward, it seems, by an member of one of Mr. Strider’s infamously volatile fan forums with the username “turntechGodmyfansarecredulousassholes”--is that they bonded in childhood, maintaining their friendship across the fifteen hundred-mile distance through first letters, then phone calls and even gifts. This hardly seems likely, though, given Ms. Lalonde’s notable elusiveness and Mr. Strider’s notorious eccentricity. Most scholars now give little credence to what they call the Pen-Pal Fallacy, though the idea refuses to die.

When asked, both director and author avoided comment on their relationship; Mr. Strider only admitted to knowing of her, while Ms. Lalonde said even less, though both were asked multiple times. The following is an transcripted excerpt from a promotional interview for _SBaHJ the The Film_ hosted by renowned journalist Stephenie Meyer.

SM: [...] Maybe we’ll discuss that off the air. _[Laughs.]_ Besides, I’m married.  
DS: Don’t worry, it’ll all come back to you eventually. It’s like riding a bicycle: uncomfortable in the crotch regions, a pretty decent cardio workout, and perfect for pissing off everyone around you.  
SM: _[Laughs again.]_ What would your girlfriend think if she saw this?  
DS: Nah. I keep all my conquests chained up in the crawlspace with a typewriter and some Cheetos. By Day thirty-seven, every page is gold.  
SM: Oh, is that the story behind _Complacency of the Learned_?  
DS: Uh.  
SM: That’s so romantic.  
DS: Wow, okay, hold onto your panties there, Steph.  
SM: Come on, admit it. Weren’t you and Ms. Lalonde a thing?  
DS: If we were a thing it sure wasn’t a thing anything like the thing that you’re thinking was a thing that could actually happen.  
SM: So, yes or no?

pp.134 _Haven in a Heartless World_

DS: Have you seen her? I could get the same effect by grinding a mirror, but with less freezerburn.

A similar question put to Ms. Lalonde at a book signing in Seattle yielded the following answer:

RL: Who?

[...]

pp.312 _Haven in a Heartless World_

[...] stories about running into them at charity events and A-list parties exploded after their disappearances. Celebrities and Joe Plumbers lunged for the spotlight, drooled over a chance to share in the mythos surrounding two such controversial and, dare I say it, inspiring rebels and social shakers.

One source, a young Disney channel starlet in their time who asked not to be named in this chronicle, claimed to have met Ms. Lalonde at a Hollywood function.

“I was drunk,” he said. “I was sixteen and signed on for a second season, we were gonna shoot in Florida and I was going to have four solo songs on the album, and I was wasted off my ass. And that lady was a fine piece of ass, let me tell you, and she was standing in the corner with a glass of, I don’t know, I don’t even think it had a drop of booze in it, the bartender told me later it was like apple juice or some shit but I don’t know, he ain’t exactly a reliable narrator. You copying all this?”

I reminded him that I had a tape recorder.

“Right, yeah. Anyway, she was standing all by her lonesome, and I’m a friendly guy, right? I didn’t have any dishonorable intentions or anything like that. So I go up to her, and I’m like, ‘Hey,’ and she’s like, well she doesn’t say anything, but she gives me a once-over or something. And you know, she smiles and maybe flutters her eyelashes a little--”

“The bartender’s on record that she rolled her eyes--”

“Yeah, what does he know. I’m telling you that dude was fucking unreliable. Anyway, I’m introducing myself, and along comes Strider,

pp.313 Chapter Eight: The ones to catch you when the world lets go

[A photograph of Ms. Lalonde and Mr. Strider in gala attire. They are not looking at one another, but his hand is on her elbow.]

Mr. Strider and Ms. Lalonde at a party in Los Angeles.

pp.314 _Haven in a Heartless World_

and he goes, ‘Didn’t know jailbait was in this year.’

“And she’s like, ‘You know me, Strider, I make my plays in advance.’

“I tell him, ‘Beat it, Bozo, you’re standing in my sun,’ and he gives me this look, like, I know he’s got those shades but like I’ve got this killer instinct, right, and that’s what he is. He was a killer, lady, and I knew it even before he went bananashit on the Presidents.

“Anyway, yeah, he gives me that look, and he’s like, ‘Kid, I think they’re handing out glowsticks downstairs, why don’t you go pick yourself up a nightlight?’

“And of course he’s being a huge asshole and I don’t take that shit from anyone, and I know Lalonde doesn’t think he’s funny, either, so I tell him, ‘Dude, who do you think you are, King Arthur? This ain’t chivalry, it’s fucking sexism, you don’t have to protect her from me.’

“And he just smirks. Like it doesn’t even qualify as that, it’s like one pixel moved in his whole face. ‘You got it all wrong, dude. She doesn’t need my protection from anything. I’m magnanimously protecting the bottom of the gene pool from her.’

“And then he just walks off, and she slides her hand in his elbow and they leave like that, and it’s like, man, everyone already knows you’re banging, why you gotta make everyone want to rageclock you in the douchesmirk, please?”

[...]

pp.413 Chapter Twelve: For there is no friend like a sister

[...] Yes. It was the boy, Strider, just sitting out by his lonesome on the roof. I wanted to tell him to get down, it’s not safe up there, but he wouldn’t have heard me. For a whole minute there, I was afraid he was going to jump. We get jumpers sometimes, yes. And he looked--he didn’t look like a jumper, but he looked. Thoughtful, I guess.

“I was going to call the police when I saw the lady come up behind him, and he looked at her over his shoulder. I couldn’t see his eyes, of course. Nobody’s ever seen them. But as old as I am, you know, you get to know some things. He was hurting. And they didn’t notice me, neither of them. Nobody notices the old people.

“‘I bought him a chair,’ he said. Just like that, none of those weird things he says on the T.V. sometimes, just quiet and gentle and sad. ‘I bought him a chair. Put it together myself. With a screwdriver.’

“And that girl, she just knelt right there in her pretty dress and everything, and there’s pigeon droppings all over the roof, and she puts her arms around that boy’s shoulders and rubs his back and whispers to him, and you know? I think he was crying. Because he hugged her back, too.

“I never seen anything so lonely in my life. I went home and held my wife and kids and never told a soul.”

**Author's Note:**

> Quotes referenced in chapter titles:
> 
> The family is a haven in a heartless world.  
> Attributed to Christopher Lasch
> 
> He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.  
> Francis Bacon
> 
> Although your friends may be your world, your family will always be the ones to catch you when the world lets go.  
> Anonymous
> 
> For there is no friend like a sister  
> In calm or stormy weather;  
> To cheer one on the tedious way,  
> To fetch one if one goes astray,  
> To lift one if one totters down,  
> To strengthen whilst one stands.  
> Christina Rossetti


End file.
